At least five investment banks initiated coverage on Zendesk stock on Monday, with two rating it buy or the equivalent and three rating it neutral or the equivalent.

Zendesk makes customer service software that competes with similar offerings from Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM).

Richard Davis, an analyst for Canaccord Genuity, said in a research note that Zendesk will take market share away from legacy vendors while being able to challenge Salesforce, the leading provider of customer relationship management software.

He opened coverage on the company with a buy rating and a 19 price target.

"Zendesk is a promising, albeit emerging firm that appears set to continue to rapidly win business with firms looking to deploy what we believe is a best-in-class customer engagement platform," he wrote. "Zendesk's primary customer base skews smaller than Salesforce; this is a large space and market share is coming from legacy firms; and we believe Zendesk's software is better designed than Salesforce's, so a new module from Salesforce is unlikely to enable the company to leapfrog Zendesk."

In a report, Brendan Barnicle, an analyst for Pacific Crest Securities, also said he expects Zendesk to take share, while posting annual revenue growth of 55%, 45% and 36% in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.

He initiated coverage with an outperform rating and a price target of 20.

"This growth would make Zendesk one of the fastest-growing companies in Software-as-a-Service," he wrote. "Through innovative product design and development, Zendesk is radically changing the customer service market. We expect Zendesk to remain one of the fastest growers in its category."

At least five investment banks initiated coverage on Zendesk stock on Monday, with two rating it buy or the equivalent and three rating it neutral or the equivalent.

Zendesk makes customer service software that competes with similar offerings from Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM).

Richard Davis, an analyst for Canaccord Genuity, said in a research note that Zendesk will take market share away from legacy vendors while being able to challenge Salesforce, the leading provider of customer relationship management software.

He opened coverage on the company with a buy rating and a 19 price target.

"Zendesk is a promising, albeit emerging firm that appears set to continue to rapidly win business with firms looking to deploy what we believe is a best-in-class customer engagement platform," he wrote. "Zendesk's primary customer base skews smaller than Salesforce; this is a large space and market share is coming from legacy firms; and we believe Zendesk's software is better designed than Salesforce's, so a new module from Salesforce is unlikely to enable the company to leapfrog Zendesk."

In a report, Brendan Barnicle, an analyst for Pacific Crest Securities, also said he expects Zendesk to take share, while posting annual revenue growth of 55%, 45% and 36% in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively.

He initiated coverage with an outperform rating and a price target of 20.

"This growth would make Zendesk one of the fastest-growing companies in Software-as-a-Service," he wrote. "Through innovative product design and development, Zendesk is radically changing the customer service market. We expect Zendesk to remain one of the fastest growers in its category."

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